Many woodworking tools, including joiners and planers, for example, create copious amounts of sawdust and airborne dust. Dust collection assemblies have been designed for woodworking to vacuum up dust particles to increase a user's respiratory comfort and allow for clear visibility of the object being worked upon. In some configurations, flexible hoses are used to direct suction capacity from a vacuum source to an end use location. In many woodworking environments, such flexible hoses have a diameter of about 4 inches.
Some woodworking dust collections assemblies are set up as a central vacuum assembly with hoses directed to each of a plurality of end use locations. Valves may be used on each of these hoses to quickly turn the suction on and off at each desired location. One configuration of a vacuum valve is a blast gate configured to connect two flexible hoses end-to-end. In one configuration, a blast gate has an interior sliding panel that is moved between an opened and closed position, as desired by a user. However, because the hoses to which the blast gate is connected are flexible, such panel movement (particularly when done manually) may cause undesirable play in the assembly, which can lead to loosened hose connections, operation difficulty, and stress on the components.